The present application relates to adaptive surface surgical guiding apparatuses, tools, devices, or guides (hereinafter “apparatus” or “apparatuses”) including stability and/or verification elements for use in surgical applications. This application also relates to methods for manufacturing the adaptive surface surgical guiding apparatus including stability and/or verification elements and methods for using the adaptive surface surgical guiding apparatus including stability and/or verification elements in surgery.
Surgical guiding apparatuses have wide applications in orthopedic surgery. Surgical guiding apparatuses may allow a pre-operative surgical plan to be accurately implemented in the operating room. Further, surgical guiding apparatuses may help guide a surgical instrument, such as a cutting or drilling instrument, along a pre-defined cutting or drilling path.
However, creating a surgical guiding apparatus that includes one or more representations of an anatomical surface using pre-operative medical imaging data may not always be possible. For example, various anatomical surfaces may include soft-tissue that is not visible in certain types of medical images, like X-ray images. Additionally, anatomical surfaces may vary in shape from what is seen in the medical images. Finally, modeling errors may lead to representations that vary from the underlying anatomical surface. As a result, a surgical guiding apparatus may not fit well on a patient's anatomical surface(s) and may be unstable as a result. An unstable surgical guiding apparatus may lead to an inaccurate guiding position for a surgical instrument, which is undesirable.
In addition to the difficulty of creating surgical guiding apparatuses that include exact representations of anatomical surfaces, the underlying anatomical surfaces themselves may lack surfaces usable for stabilizing a surgical guiding apparatus. For example, the underlying anatomical surfaces themselves may not be conducive to supporting a surgical guiding apparatus. Similarly, the underlying anatomical surface may be covered by soft-tissues, which may prevent the surgical guiding apparatus from securely attaching to the underlying anatomical surface.
In light of these and other deficiencies, there is a need for adaptive surface surgical guiding apparatuses including stability and/or verification elements that provide secure and stable attachment to an anatomical surface.